KP CM takes notice of self-immolation

PESHAWAR - Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has taken strong exception to the sorrowful incident of self-immolation of a poor Rickshaw driver Sulaiman in Charsadda due to challan of Rs200 for the second time by the traffic police and asked the IG police to conduct an immediate enquiry into this incident on factual grounds and submit its report to him. He regretted that the Rickshaw driver, 22, could not deposit Rs200 for the 2nd time due to his immense poverty but the local traffic police impounded the Rickshaw in police station and compelled the poor youth to burn himself at Farooq Azam square of Charsadda.Pervez Khattak deplored that though corruption and political interference has been eliminated from the police force with the sole aim to make it public friendly but such ugly incidents revealed that our improving police force also had some black sheep in its folds that instead of caring about the poor and making them law abiding citizens with love and affection, sparing no efforts to exploit the commuters ruthlessly. Hence, he said that such elements in police force must be discouraged with iron hands. The chief minister directed the police department not only to arrange for complete treatment and financial assistance of the poor Rickshaw driver Sulaiman and bring the cruel police officials to book but also adopt the policy to deduct the expenses and charges incurred on such kind of incidents from the salaries of officials committing such offences so that they could not dare to oppress the poor citizens in future but rather to make them law abiding citizens with love and affection.

This news was published in The Nation newspaper. Read complete newspaper of 19-Aug-2014 here.